When members of the Kontogiannis family go to war about who’s more crooked, it’s bound to be an ugly affair.
On Friday, Thomas Kontogiannis’ nephew, John Michael, accused of laundering money in the Duke Cunningham scandal, urged that Judge Larry Burns either dismiss charges against him or exclude testimony from his uncle — whom he called “nothing short of a remorseless and manipulative sociopath.” Among the allegations made by Michael’s motion: the federal government allowed Kontogiannis, who in February pleaded guilty to a money-laundering charge, to profit from illicit financing schemes in exchange for testimony against Michael — among them the purchase of a home of one of the uncles of a federal prosecutor on the case.
It doesn’t stop there. Michael’s motion accuses Kontogiannis of committing identity theft for small-time profit while on probation for a visa-fraud conviction. And it takes a look back to that visa-fraud case to highlight a constant of Tommy K’s numerous convictions: when caught, start snitching to avoid getting locked up.
